Echo Park Walk-Up Taco and Burrito Stands: New Lives for Old Windows
"The workers knew your name," Natalia Molina told the Los Angeles Times this summer. Molina is a third-generation Echo Park native and the author of "A Place at the Nayarit." She was talking about Burrito King, the walk-up stand on Sunset Boulevard where she stopped on her way home from school as a self-described latchkey kid. "They asked how your day was, they looked out for you. It just made it feel like a transition between school and home."
Burrito King closed for good in late June 2026, after 58 years. The Times covered the closure as another loss of the old neighborhood. It put the stand alongside other long-running places that have closed, including Taix. Three months on, that story needs an update. Echo Park's two oldest burrito windows have both gone dark, and both have already drawn new operators. Neither newcomer is turning the space into something unrecognizable. One has reopened the original front window at 1312 Echo Park Avenue. The other has leased the Sunset stand and plans to keep the Burrito King name and its burro.
Here is where each window stood as of early October 2026.
| Stand | Location | Opened | Went dark | What's there now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Burritos | 1312 Echo Park Ave. | Early 1970s | Before a nearly yearlong buildout | Tijuanero by Tijuanazo, open since Sept. 24, 2026 |
| Burrito King | Sunset Blvd. at N. Alvarado St. | 1968 | Late June 2026 | Leased to a new operator who plans to reopen as Burrito King, with no date yet |
Los Burritos went first. The Eastsider reported that the stand at 1312 Echo Park Avenue had been boarded up for nearly two weeks and looked permanently closed. Nobody could say why. Two other Los Burritos locations, in East Hollywood and North Hollywood, stayed open. Online, longtime customers shared what the stand had meant to them: visits as kids, the first stop on a date, the last stop after a night out.
Burrito King had an even longer history. Julian E. Montoya, an immigrant from Colombia, opened it in 1968. In the '80s the brand grew to 20 locations, including outposts in Anaheim, Houston and Bogotá. By the early 2000s only two were left: the original ketchup-and-mustard-painted building in Echo Park and a bungalow in Silver Lake off Hyperion and Rowena avenues, which closed in 2011. When the Echo Park stand closed, the Times reported that the space had been listed for rent at $6,000 a month.
The first window to come back is the one that went dark first. Tijuanero by Tijuanazo opened quietly on September 24 after nearly a year of construction in the former Los Burritos space. Eater LA reports that it serves tacos, burritos and aguas frescas out of the stand's well-loved front window.
The operators are new to Echo Park, but the family's ties to the block go back a long way. Antonio and Claudia Esquivel started Tijuanazo in 2008 as Taco Nazo, a cart in Playas de Tijuana. Three years later they opened their first restaurant in the same neighborhood. Their daughter Aria brought the taqueria to East Los Angeles in August 2024. Antonio grew up in the area and remembers Los Burritos from childhood. When Aria saw the stand had closed, she moved to take it.
"We also wanted to preserve it being a Hispanic, Latino-owned business." Aria Esquivel, to Eater LA
She told Eater that the neighbors have been "so warm and welcoming." She also said it feels "very emotional" for her father to see the taqueria open in the neighborhood where he grew up. Seen as a business decision, a Tijuana taqueria with a following could have opened almost anywhere. The family chose the window Antonio grew up eating at, and the opening announcement is built around keeping it going.
The order is short, and it follows the format of the old stand. Tijuanero brings its usual lineup to Echo Park:
Aria Esquivel recommends starting with the adobada. It's cooked on the trompo, loaded into tacos, and finished with avocado crema and a slice of pineapple. "That is what pretty much fundamentally started this taqueria, and it's been our bestseller since then," she told Eater.
As of Eater's September 28 report, the stand is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 10 p.m., and the hours are still being finalized. That schedule sets Tijuanero apart from the stand on Sunset. The Times called Burrito King a late-night institution and an unofficial after-hours stand. For now, the reopened window on Echo Park Avenue is a lunch-through-dinner counter. Since the hours aren't settled, check before planning a late stop.
The newer closure is moving along a similar path, though more slowly. In a roundup published after the closure, The Eastsider reported that a person named Yanina has leased the former Burrito King stand at Sunset Boulevard and Alvarado. According to an Instagram post, she plans to reopen under the same name and with the stand's familiar burro.
A lot is still unknown. The report gave no opening date and no menu. Ownership history is also murky. The Times wrote that it's unclear when Montoya handed over the business or who took it over, and that the space had been listed for sale back in 2021. The Times also noted that Sunset Boulevard now has plenty of other Mexican food, from late-night taco trucks to sit-down restaurants, alongside chains like Chipotle and Pitfire Pizza.
That makes the plan to keep the name stand out. A new tenant on a corner with that much competition could have opened under any name. The name Yanina is reportedly keeping is the one Echo Park has known since 1968.
What is confirmed so far is a lease and a stated plan, not an opening. Until the window reopens, nobody knows what the new Burrito King will serve, when it will open, or whether it will return to late-night hours.
While both windows were in transition, one of the area's walk-up regulars kept serving a short distance from 1312. Eater's Echo Park guide, updated in March 2026, lists Alejandra's Quesadilla Cart at 1246 Echo Park Avenue. Eater calls it a neighborhood fixture for at least a decade. The cart serves Oaxacan blue-corn quesadillas Friday through Monday, roughly 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
With that addition, Echo Park Avenue now has a lunch-and-dinner taqueria working out of a 1970s window and a weekend-leaning quesadilla cart down the street. On Sunset, a lease is waiting to turn back into a burrito stand. Burrito King went dark three months ago, and the Los Burritos window spent nearly a year under construction before it reopened. Both windows already have operators who have said publicly that they intend to carry on what was there before.
If you live near one of these windows, you know how much a well-known storefront shapes the block around it. At Longfellow + Leach Team, we pay close attention to that kind of block-by-block continuity in Echo Park. If you're thinking about what your own place on one of these streets is worth, we'll start with a Complimentary Valuation & Design Plan and a walk around the block.
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